


Quiet Grace

by Gyptian



Series: Nevertheless, She Regenerated (And Found More Friends) [2]
Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Episode Tag, Episode: s11e01 The Woman Who Fell to Earth, Family, Family Feels, Family Fluff, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-04
Updated: 2018-11-04
Packaged: 2019-08-17 07:53:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16512299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gyptian/pseuds/Gyptian
Summary: Ryan spends a few moments with his nan while the Doctor sleeps the sleep of the regenerating.





	Quiet Grace

Ryan found his Nan pecking away at a tablet. Her reading glasses with their beaded chain perched on her nose. A gag gift from Graham that she wore with pride. She did that sometimes, took a joke and played it straight because she discerned the message people tried hide.  
  
She’d pulled a rocking chair up to the couch, to watch over the nameless alien. What had seemed just a blonde with a one-track-mind now looked angelic, in the terrifying-otherwordly-messenger-from-heaven sort of way. A golden glow played over her skin like underwater sunlight, except there was no light source. _She_ was the light source. Ryan’s brain went _nope_ whenever his mind contemplated the logic of that detail. How could bodies even do that? Still, alien. Proper alien, looking like this.  
  
His nan seemed rather blasé about it. As if it was nothing more than a campfire to warm her. Her face was warm browns and blacks, except where her tablet’s light made a pale bandit scarf. Still keeping an eye on the nurses’ group chat, it seemed. Just in case.  
  
He’d already given up on trawling social media. He was no expert.  
  
“Ryan,” Piercing eyes peered over horn rims that suited her not one bit. Bloody Graham and his bad taste putting his marks all over her and their home again. “Stop dilly-dallying and sit.”  
  
Because it was his nan who said it, he pulled up a footstool and joined her in her vigil.  
  
“Something else, isn’t she?” asked his nan. She smiled as she did when he’d done something right with his life or Graham brought her flowers. Like the whole world was her oyster and she couldn’t think of a better life to live.  
  
Wonder. Joy.  
  
Emotions that Ryan found hard to come by, even in this madcap adventure they’d found themselves swept up in. Too much could go wrong. Too much depended on them, just a group of ordinary folk trying to stop some mystery Flying Spaghetti Monster that electrocuted people.  
  
Still, he sat there and tried to see what she saw. Alien, glowing gold. On their couch. All right, yeah, that was proper bizarre. Enough to make a man stop and stare. As his nan had known she should, to absorb this moment in her life, sit down and take it in, in full, in order to savour later.  
  
That was his nan, making him feel like a little boy, like he had so much to learn and like both of those facts were _good_.  
  
They didn’t worship any God. She’d taught him another sort of spirituality. Respect for the utter improbability of life, for all of them walking about their planet doing their business and finding meaning in it all. Making it seem important simply because she could enjoy it so much.  
  
Moments when she seemed larger than life made him admire her. Quiet moments like these made him love her, when she tucked herself in a corner to watch something that delighted her.  
  
“Yes, nan,” he whispered, when he thought he got what she said, what she meant. She nodded at him, more for the tone in his voice than his words.  
  
He shuffled closer with his foot stool until his knees were catty-corner to hers. So they could both sit in the firelight glow of their alien… friend? She’d sure claimed them as such like you could do that with a stranger, but then, maybe, like his nan, people simply followed along in her wake because she was that sort of a woman.  
  
He put a hand on his nan’s knee. His personal saviour, his anchor in a life that tossed him around like a survivor in one of those tiny rubber blow-up boats in the middle of a storm. At best.  
  
They held watch together, quiet together as they were wont to do, his nan and he. A sleeping alien held the darkness at bay with her shining face.

**Author's Note:**

> Anyone up for betaing short who fics?


End file.
